hold an absence at your center
by paregmenon
Summary: This is what dependence looks like. This is what obsession looks like. [tony/pepper; im3 au.]


**contains: major character death, panic attacks. **

**originally posted at AO3.**

* * *

Fact: Pepper Potts is the best thing that ever happened to Tony Stark. Fact: Tony is, always has been, and let's face it, probably always will be, a hot mess.

Fact: Tony doesn't have anyone but Pepper.

This is what dependence looks like. This is what obsession looks like.

.

What if Tony Stark didn't have Pepper Potts?

.

In one universe, Extremis takes. Extremis works its way around Pepper's brain, around her spine, around her cells. It becomes her, and she becomes it. There is no separation, like Tony Stark and Iron Man.

In one universe, Extremis fails. It crushes nerves and neurons and destroys everything in its path, a nuclear war in one brain. Let's say her brain is a computer. The computer overheats, fails, dies. There is no repair. There is nothing to repair.

.

Tony thinks about a town, with shadows on the wall, and a grief-stricken mother with nothing but a weary tiredness in her bones. Tony thinks about a suit that was supposed to protect what he loves. The one thing that he can't live without.

Let's say you have everything. Let's say you have nothing. What happens, when you lose what means the most to you?

.

"I would have made her perfect," says Killian.

"She already was perfect," says Tony, and he wants to kill him slowly, painfully, with his bare hands. He wants to rip him apart completely, leave nothing behind. There is nothing of Pepper.

There will be a memorial service, he thinks. Pepper didn't have family. Pepper had Tony.

The Mark 42 flies toward Aldrich Killian, and he screams in outrage, and he screams as the suit flames and blares, screams as it burns him. The smell of roasting flesh is acrid. It sounds painful.

(It isn't painful enough.)

Killian stumbles out of the wreckage, burned and destroyed, and Tony looks at him, sees Pepper's murderer, sees the man who i_destroyed everything/i_, and takes a vicious pleasure in grabbing the gauntlet that flies to him, and firing into the man's face.

.

They save the President. This counts for something. Rhodey claps him on the shoulder, as if this is an achievement. The press is everywhere. Smile, Tony. This is your moment.

(Pepper straightens his suit, sighs at his hair.)

Handling the press is like riding a bike for him; this is what your childhood looked like Tony, this is what your adulthood looks like. This is you. This is you.

(This is Tony Stark, whether the world likes him or not.)

They saved the President. This should count for something.

.

Rhodey makes a count of the number of times Tony was an ass during the meeting. It's a shamefully low number. (For him.)

This is what he is thinking about, when spouting off rubbish to one reporter after another after another: what does it feel like, to not exist? What does it feel like when your body is burning up, hotter and hotter than it could ever should ever should never be? Did it hurt when her brain couldn't cope with it? Were synapses still firing off, saying _this hurts_, saying _stop the pain_, saying _danger danger danger_?

.

Tony is flying over the Atlantic Ocean when his father's words come back to him. Failure is not acceptable. Failure is not tolerated.

Iron Man is Tony Stark and Tony Stark is Iron Man. Tony Stark couldn't save Pepper Potts. Iron Man couldn't save Pepper Potts.

Tony is flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Failure is not acceptable.

Aren't you a mechanic? Build something.

Tony Stark is an engineer. Tony Stark is the best engineer, because why be something if you aren't going to be the best at it? Why do something if it's not going to be the best?

Iron Man was a failure; world peace is all well and good, but what use is Iron Man if he can't even protect what he loves?

.

The end is in the beginning is in the end, as one suit after another soars higher and higher, until they are specks that he can barely make out.

"JARVIS, you know what to do," he says, and stands and maybe under other circumstances this would be good. Maybe under other circumstances he would enjoy this. He catches a glimpse of red out of the corner of his eye, the brush of one arm against another.

The clean slate protocol flares into effect, bursting through the sky, and one suit after another, months of work after years of work, crack into fireworks in moments. His nails dig into his palm, the sharp pain grounding him.

_You are on solid ground. There is no bomb. There is no wormhole. You are not on a ship. You are not watching it blow up. _

His breath is like a ballast in his chest, lungs and heart weighed down. He chokes on his fear as it swells up, twisting his stomach and catching in his throat, and he can't breathe, _he can't breathe_. His heart races, and he hears the pounding in his ears, louder and louder. He sits suddenly, gasping, _oh god oh god,_ and he's shaking worse than ever before, the trembling of his hands uncontrollable, but he presses them into his thighs anyway, trying futilely to have some control over this, some control over his body-

("You're not dying, you're not dying," he says. "It's okay. I'll be okay."

"Sir, might I recommend -" JARVIS starts, and Tony snarls, "JARVIS, shut up.")

It passes, as it always does, and he collapses onto the ground fully, breathing deeply and burying his fingers in the dirt.

.

"What do you mean you destroyed the suit?" Steve asks, baffled.

"Wait, does this mean you're off the team?" Clint asks.

"How are you?" Bruce asks.

"I mean I destroyed the suit," Tony says, and doesn't give anyone a chance to ask _why_ or _how._

"I'm building a better one," he says, and disappears again.

"I'm okay," he says, and that's all they say on the matter.

This is how it begins: he draws up the plans, and doesn't talk about it. Show nothing to anyone. Fury is suspicious, but everyone has secrets, and when you work with SHIELD you learn to keep them. His secrets grow in the silence of his workshop, between glass and metal and paint. Everyone needs secrets to keep them company and even with JARVIS and Dummy and You, it gets lonely in the workshop.

.

The thing about the Avengers is that they are a mess. Individually and together.

This is what the team is made of: a spy who trusts only herself, a sniper who doesn't trust himself let alone the rest of them, a scientist who turns into a giant green ball of rage when he's ticked off, a war hero seventy years out of time, a god whose brother tried to commit genocide, and Tony Stark.

This is not where you want to look for fully functional, completely sane, rational people.

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself," Tony says to Natasha, says to every member of the team at some point, when they pull some ridiculous death defying stunt in the middle of a fight.

When was the last time a superhero took their own advice?

.

Tony's workshop is off limits. It's a rule. It's up there on the list along with _Do not take Bruce's tea_ and _Do not touch Natasha's knives. _Everyone needs guidelines for living with new people, Tony says, and they all know what he isn't saying.

The door is locked, but a select few people have an override, so that Pepper can drag him out for food and hygiene reasons, so that Steve can drag him out to save people, so that Rhodey can make sure he's still alive when he comes around to visit.

Let's say you are an Avenger. You don't normally go near the workshop. You don't pay any attention to it, aside from the finished products that come out from it.

Let's say you are an Avenger. Would you notice any changes? Would you pay them any heed?

.

It is two months since Pepper died. There was a memorial service, and everyone said it was lovely.

"Has anyone seen Tony recently?" someone asks. It doesn't matter who asks because the answer is always the same. Shrug, say, "His workshop, probably," because that is where he spends the free moments between saving the world and running a global enterprise.

"When was the last time he ate?" Steve asks.

"We're not his keepers," Natasha says. "If he's hungry he'll come and get something to eat."

Bruce sighs, shrugs, says, "I think Clint left some food outside the door for him."

Steve frowns. "Should we go in and check on him?"

"I'm pretty sure he's still alive, Cap," Clint says. "JARVIS would have told us if something was up, right?"

.

Steve goes to the workshop, and enters his passcode.

Unauthorized passcode. Please try again.

He tries again. He tries until he's locked out, and he's silently furious that Tony has shut him out so completely. He breathes in, breathes out. Waits until he feels back in control, until his heartbeat is regular.

Steve sits outside the workshop that night, waiting to talk to Tony. Three times he asks JARVIS if Tony knows he's there. He does, Captain Rogers. Is Tony coming out? In a minute, sir.

Steve sits outside the workshop that night, and the next. On the third night, when Tony still hasn't come out, he resolves to speak to him at some point during the day. He does come out sometimes, after all. He's got a company to run.

Tony stops going to meetings.

.

The new Iron Man suit is ready in seven weeks. There is no fanfare, there is no admiration over the sleek metal plates.

They do their job.

Tony still spends all of his time building.

.

It is five months since Pepper died.

Tony eats. Sometimes. Tony sleeps. Sometimes. He is the same as he was when Pepper was in Malibu or abroad.

Tony works and builds and invents.

"Everyone copes in different ways," Steve says to the press when they ask about him, and tries his best to sound convincing. "Tony was friends with Ms Potts for years, of course he's grieving."

"There's a difference between grieving and self-destructing," says Bruce when they're back at the Tower.

"I believe the Man of Iron needs the support of his friends," Thor announces, and Clint snorts.

"We have no way of getting in to him, buddy, and I don't think he'd take it well if you used Mjölnir to break down the door," he says.

"Why not?" Natasha asks, and there's a lull in the conversation before people realise that she's not joking.

Steve stares at her. "No," he says. "We are not breaking down a part of the Tower just to get to Tony."

Natasha looks at him dubiously. "Are you sure?"

By the end of the week they do it anyway, and Steve thinks for a moment about the ridiculousness of the situation before the guilt sets in. The fury on Tony's face is almost worth the guilt Steve feels for their actions. This is real, not like the smiles he gives them when he appears in the shared living areas, not like the forced laughs over the comms.

"I apologise, my friend, but you should not grieve alone," Thor says, stepping forward.

"Get out," Tony says, and turns away, immerses himself in holograms and designs.

"Well," Steve says later, "we tried," and he's slightly grateful when nobody makes any remarks about what a spectacular failure it was. They make their way to their own rooms in silence.

The wall is rebuilt. They don't see Tony again for two weeks.

.

It is seven months after the fact.

Tony is - Tony is slightly better, the Avengers say. He remembers to shower and shave more regularly. They find him at the kitchen table, scribbling on spare sheets of paper, and drinking more caffeine than one person should.

It's no different from how he was when the Avengers first formed, and he was making new equipment and redesigning Avengers Tower.

"Hey," he says to Clint and shoves a new bow and a new quiver of arrows at him. "Try this."

He tries to redesign Steve's shield, tries to update Natasha's guns. They shut him down, and he sighs, long-suffering and weary of their antics, but does as they say and doesn't try to foist new gadgets onto them.

(He talks to himself, but it's okay. He's got JARVIS and his other bots.)

.

In the ninth month, Tony collapses from exhaustion and lack of food three times.

The third time it happens, Steve is waiting for him when he wakes up.

"I'm here if you want to talk," Steve says, and Tony waves him off, says, "I'm fine, Cap, stop worrying so much."

Steve breathes in, breathes out. "You're clearly not fine if you're collapsing from _exhaustion_, Tony."

"It's happened before, it'll happen again," Tony says dismissively. "I know, I know, 'you work too much, you need to take a break.'"

"If it happens again," Steve says, "You're benched."

Tony tries to sit up, looking furious, but something over Steve's shoulder catches his attention and he suddenly falls back, not defeated and not giving in as such, but agreeing. "Fine," he says, and Steve blinks, not expecting it to have been that easy.

.

Tensions are running high in the Avengers Tower, and it has (almost) nothing to do with the fact that three of them nearly died in the last week and (nearly) everything to do with the date.

359 days have passed since Pepper and Killian and Extremis, and Tony is -

Tony is fine.

"I'm here if you want to talk," Steve says, and Tony waves him off, like he has done for the past year.

362 days have passed since Pepper and Killian and Extremis, and Natasha and Clint are on their way back to New York from an undisclosed location (South America). Steve is meeting them at SHIELD after he talks to Agent Sitwell, and then they're picking Bruce up from a lecture he is giving. Thor is visiting Jane and Tony is working.

"There were bugs," Clint says when Steve asks how it was. "One of the agents screamed."

Natasha says, "It could have been worse," which means "It was pretty bad," and Steve asks nothing more.

The ride back to the Tower is peaceful. Clint sleeps and Natasha says, "If it was one of us he'd have drawn on our face by now."

"It's a good thing that we're more mature than that, isn't it?" Steve says, and carefully watches the buildings they pass as Natasha draws on his face with a pen Bruce produces from one of his endless pockets.

.

It's a Friday. Pizza night.

They make their way up to the floor they all share, and hear laughter in the kitchen.

"Did Tony get a new PA while we were gone?" Clint asks, and Steve frowns.

"Not unless it was in the last few hours," Bruce says, then turns down the corridor to the labs.

Clint strolls into the kitchen, and stops suddenly.

Natasha pushes him through the doorway, says, "Keep moving, I need coffee," and then she and Steve are in the kitchen, and oh. Oh.

362 days have passed since Pepper and Killian and Extremis, but Pepper is sitting at the kitchen table while Tony is leaning against the counter.

Tony turns to look at them, grinning. "What took you so long, Capsicle? We were beginning to think you'd all gotten lost."

Pepper looks at them, and smiles. Her eyes are blank. "Hello," she says and Steve cringes at the imitation of Pepper's tone. "How are you?"

.

Fact: Pepper Potts is the best thing that ever happened to Tony Stark. Fact: Tony is, always has been, and let's face it, probably always will be, a hot mess.

Fact: Tony doesn't have anyone but Pepper.

This is what dependence looks like. This is what obsession looks like.

.

What is Tony Stark without Pepper Potts?


End file.
